Bill Ballou: When you add it up, all the pitching injuries don't make sense

By Bill BallouThe Worcester Telegram & Gazette

Sunday

Aug 5, 2018 at 6:53 PM

There are many things in life that are counter-intuitive, which is Dr. Phil jargon for saying they make no sense.

Exhibit A: The top of Mount Everest should be the warmest place in the world because it is the closest to the sun, but it is actually the coldest. And so it is with baseball injuries.

There is better training, better equipment, better treatment and better diagnostics today than ever before, but there are more injuries, and especially with pitchers.

Exhibit A: Chris Sale goes on the disabled list with a sore shoulder even though the Red Sox have reduced his standard workload in order to keep him fresh for the fall.

One of the things this reporter has done in his years covering the Red Sox, which began in 1987, is keep track of the team’s disabled list. Here are the numbers from that:

• In the 1970s, Boston totaled 516 games missed due to pitching injuries.

• In the 1980s, that was up to 1,200.

• In the 1990s, it ballooned to 3,687.

• From 2000 to 2009 it was 3,480.

• From 2010 to now it is 4,733.

Something’s out of whack here. Look at track and field, or swimming records. They change incrementally, in hundredths of a second, or millimeters. The human body evolves over centuries, not seasons. Pitchers should not be nine times more injury-prone in 2018 than they were in 1978.

They are not, of course. There are lots of factors involved in why the disabled list has exploded. One is salaries — teams are going to be more careful with a pitcher worth $32,000,000 than they were with one worth $32,000. Another is the way the DL is used now. Until 1990, teams were restricted to how many players they could have on the disabled list at one time.

In the years before that, teams could have only three players on the DL at any one time. That meant there were many hurting pitchers on major-league mounds. Today’s DL is almost limitless, including the 60-day DL. The Red Sox have 11 men on the disabled list right now, although not all are pitchers.

Another factor is Tommy John surgery. Until that operation was invented, pitchers with shredded elbow ligaments either retired or were released. There was minimal DL time. Now pitchers recovering from the surgery spend a minimum of a full season on the disabled list.

So there are lots of reasons, but no definitive answer to one nagging question:

Does all of this technology, training and prevention reduce the number of arm injuries for pitchers?

There is no proof that it does. Look at Sale. How about Nathan Eovaldi, who at age 28 already has had two Tommy John surgeries. Sox prospect Anderson Espinosa, who they traded to San Diego for Drew Pomeranz, had Tommy John at age 19.

For a long time, pitching with pain was considered to be part of the job description. Tall Sox lefty Pete Schourek once said that he never threw a pitch in the major leagues that did not hurt, and the year his arm hurt the most he won the most games he ever had.

That was 1995 when he won 18 games for the Reds, working 190 1/3 innings. It is worth noting that the year after, Schourek was 4-5 with a 6.01 ERA.

Today’s pitchers pitch less than ever before, have better conditioning programs than ever before, have better medical treatment than ever before, and get hurt more than ever before. Or maybe not.

It makes no sense, but it sure is cold at the top of Mount Everest.

Here and there

• I’m on umpire Adam Hamari’s side in how he handled the Red Sox-Yankees potential beanball battle on Friday night. Rick Porcello, who did not walk anybody in nine innings and is known for his great control, somehow managed to hit Brett Gardner accidentally, and is second in the league in hit batsmen overall. Luis Severino’s retaliation — a pitch up and in on Mookie Betts — was too high, for sure. But when Red Sox manager Alex Cora charged out to argue the warning — an automatic ejection — Hamari actually gave him a chance to retreat before throwing him out. And the game was pretty uneventful after that, which was the goal.

• Thank goodness Dave Dombrowski did not fall prey to the “bolster the bullpen” litany that resounds through baseball at the trade deadline. Remember Eric Gagne? Addison Reed? Dombrowski’s two pickups — Steve Pearce and Ian Kinsler — have him in line for Executive of the Year consideration. One more thing — Dombrowski’s winning percentage running the Sox is .605, way ahead the second-place GM. That would be Theo Epstein at .575. Of course, those two World Series titles Epstein has must play into the best-GM equation, as well.

• Could Alex Cobb, the Orioles' workhorse, lose 20 games this season? He has 14 losses already and nine, maybe 10 starts left. The majors’ last 20-game loser was Mike Maroth, who was 9-21 for the Tigers in 2003.

• That 2-hour, 15-minute game on Friday night was the shortest involving the Red Sox and Yankees since May 6, 1994, when it took 2:13 for New York to win at Yankee Stadium, 3-1. The Sox have not played a regulation game in under two hours in this century. Their most recent in under 120 minutes was on April 22, 1999, when the Tigers won, 1-0, in Detroit, with Mark Portugal hurling for Boston.

• After slow start due to dreadful weather, attendance has picked up a bit at Fenway Park, although it can be hard to tell since almost every game in June through August is a sellout or close. … The Pawtucket Red Sox are on the road all week, returning to McCoy Stadium on Aug. 13. That could be the start of a momentous week in the franchise’s long history as the team is likely to announce it will relocate to Worcester for 2021. We’ve heard that there is a team of technology experts from WPI who are working on making the new ballpark the most modern in the minors, if not all of baseball. … While Porcello has given up 16 home runs this season, 12 have come with the bases empty. … So, it’s not Aaron Judge, Aaron Hicks or Giancarlo Stanton who has hit the most home runs off Boston pitching this year — and hasn’t Hicks been a real Sox killer during his career? It is Justin Smoak of Toronto with five.